Tafasiry: Theater As a Tool for the Conservation of Malagasy Oral Tales Cassandra Stroud SIT Study Abroad

SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Spring 2011 Tafasiry: Theater as a Tool for the Conservation of Malagasy Oral Tales Cassandra Stroud SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Stroud, Cassandra, "Tafasiry: Theater as a Tool for the Conservation of Malagasy Oral Tales" (2011). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 996. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/996 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Tafasiry: Theater as a Tool for the Conservation of Malagasy Oral Tales by Cassandra Stroud Project Advisor : Christiane Ramanantsoa Academic Advisor : Roland Pritchett Semester : Spring 2011 Project Location : Morondava, Menabe, Madagascar 2 For Michelle McNamara 2 3 Acknowledgements Thank you to Roland, Hanta, and Rivo for all their help throughout the semester. Thank you to Hoby and Tojo for their work translating. Thank you to all the storytellers who shared their lives and their stories with me. 3 4 Table of Contents I. Introduction 5 II. Study Area 7 III. Research Methodology 10 IV. Angano: A Study of Malagasy Tales (i.e. the title I come up with) 21 V. Glossary 55 VI. References 56 VII. Bleu Foncé a. Titre 59 b. Remerciements 61 c. Personnages, Scène, Temps, et Notes 62 d. Bleu Foncé 63 4 5 Introduction At the outset of my project, I intended to collect information from both storytellers and story listeners on the subject of angano or tafasiry, Malagasy verbal tales, so as to examine the state of this ancient aspect of daily life in the modern Malagasy world. An elder, such as a grandparent or parent, usually tells the tafasiry in Malagasy to the children of the family, historically in front of the fire while waiting for dinner. Before formal schools were instituted, tafasiry were used as a form of education to teach children morals, information they might need for future experiences, and how to use their imagination. Stepping into my research, I was aware that tafasiry were said to be slowly disappearing from everyday life, and I examined both the reasons for this disappearance and the methods, if any, that were currently being used to slow or stop it. Commonly cited reasons for the disappearance were the introduction of technology such as television and the Internet, busier work schedules for parents and children, and changing family structures. I also examined whether or not tafasiry were commonly being translated into forms other than traditional oral tales such as books, television, radio, or theatre and the relative effectiveness of these forms in preserving both the specifics and the general essence of the tafasiry. I found that these forms were being used to a certain extent, but that the alteration in form often changed the effectiveness of the tafasiry in achieving its goals and its essence as a verbal practice. I found, however, that theatre was an underutilized form for the preservation of tafasiry with an enormous amount of potential for relative accuracy in conserving the fundamental aspects of tafasiry such as orality, 5 6 changeability, and instigation of imagination that are often lost or diminished when converted to other forms such as books. Using the tafasiry I had heard from the storytellers I interviewed, I wrote a play using these stories in an attempt to examine whether playwriting could be an effective form of conserving tafasiry. I made many alterations to the tafasiry, however, such as selecting only certain stories to convey, setting them in the modern context, translating them into French, and using only parts of the stories. After writing the play, I discussed the effectiveness of both my specific play and the play format in general in sustaining Malagasy tafasiry. Within Malagasy culture, the project has great potential to aid in the safeguarding of an oral culture that is currently at risk of completely changing or disappearing forever. If a play has the potential to maintain, at least relatively, these few tafasiry I have encountered, plays could be used to maintain so many more stories and the entire oral education system that has passed down a set of knowledge from the ancestors for many hundreds of years and has played such an important part in Malagasy history and culture. 6 7 Study Area Morondava, a coastal city in the heart of the Menabe Region, sits on Madagascar’s west coast. Morondava’s population of approximately 60,0001 is largely composed of people of Sakalava descent, an ethnic group generally believed to derive more from Africa than most other ethnic groups in Madagascar. Sakalava influence can be seen both in the local dialect and culture. For example, while the words for story or tale is angano in the official Malagasy dialect, the word in the Menabe region is tafasiry, a word of Sakalava descent. This influence can be seen even more strongly in the surrounding villages such as Analaiva, where many of the interviews for the project were conducted. The evidence of French colonial influence still remains both in the language and culture of the region. Morondava’s economy includes both large fishing and tourism sectors. Access to the city is limited to the airport, an expensive option, and one road coming from the center of the country to the coast that is in poor shape, a time– consuming option, especially during the rainy season; the difficult access to the city gives the city and region in general a certain degree of isolation compared to bigger cities like Antananarivo. The region has a long history of storytelling, much of which has its origins in Africa and Asia, the origins of a large portion of the Malagasy population. “The trans- shipping of slaves through Madagascar and the long history of cultural convergence in all the islands brought about creolization in folktales.”2 As Madagascar’s population is relatively new, many of Madagascar’s tales can be traced to recently having their roots in tales from surrounding regions. “Once in Madagascar, people combined diverse imported 1 Japet 2 Haring, African Folktales and Creolization, 183 7 8 elements to create something discontinuous and new, Malagasy culture, which could not have been predicted from its origins and is no mere assemblage of foreign influences.”3 Because of the many different origins or Madagascar’s population, there are many different ethnic groups within the island. The distinction between these ethnicities and their origins has led to many distinct sets of tales within each ethnic group. “Madagascar has little island-wide mythology.”4 However, the entire set of tales within Madagascar can still be considered part of the more general category of tafasiry. The region also has a long history of outsiders coming in to collect those stories. The first notable transcriber of these stories was Emile Birkeli who in 1924 published a volume of Sakalava tales entitled "Folklore sakalava recueilli dans la region de Morondava."5 Since then, many researchers have come from France, as well as many other countries, to transcribe the tales. Additionally, many people from the city proper of Morondava have gone into the surrounding villages to collect tales to tell on radio stations such as Radio Fanasina, Radio Antsivabe, and Radio Magneva, stations that reach both Morondava and the surrounding rural areas in the Menabe region. Many researchers have also collected large volumes of stories from Madagascar as a whole, on of the most well know being James Sibree. He wrote in Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine in 1875, “It is most desirable that any Traditions, Legends, Fables, or Folk-Lore that may be met with should be preserved, as throwing valuable light on the origin of the different tribes. The relation of these to each other also deserves careful 3 Haring, African Folktales and Creolization, 184 4 Haring, African Folktales and Creolization, 185 5 Haring, Classification of Malagasy Narrative, 344 8 9 investigation.”6 These words demonstrate the way that the continuance of stories in Madagascar and in the Menabe Region in particular has been viewed in the past: as a frantic effort to write down and preserve a dying oral culture. 6 Haring, Classification of Malagasy Narrative, 342 9 10 Research Methodology In the course of my time researching Malagasy tales, I conducted interviews with storytellers in Antananarivo, Morondava, and Analaiva and listened to these people tell stories. I also interviewed people who did not necessarily identify as storytellers about their lifetime experiences with storytelling. I also researched written tales and secondary sources on storytelling both in Madagascar and in general. After conducting interviews and reading tales and secondary sources, I wrote a play that combined both tales that I heard and read and ideas about storytelling that I gleaned from my interviews. The following paper attempts to analyze the ethics, aesthetics, transition of form, and language use of the play in relation to the information I obtained from my interviews about storytelling in Madagascar. I chose to conduct my research in Antananarivo, Morondava, and Analaiva for several reasons. First, I chose the three sites because they vary greatly in size; Antananarivo is the largest city in Madagascar, Morondava is a mid–size city, and Analaiva is a small village. Through conducting research in locations of varying size, I was able to get both urban and rural perspectives on storytelling.

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